Particulate matter and COVID-19 excess deaths: Decomposing long-term exposure and short-term effects

Excess mortality and protected areas during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Italian municipalities

“…In Italy, a number of authors have investigated the socio-economic determinants of the heterogeneous spread of the virus. For examples, Becchetti et al [3] and Gatto et al [15] analyse the role of lockdown measures, Liotta et al [22] the role of social connectedness among the elderly, Alacevich et al [1] and Perone [25] the role of demography and the health care sector, and Becchetti et al [4] and Perone [25] the role of environmental factors.…”

“…The reasons to believe in the alternative hypothesis – i.e., municipalities containing environmentally protected areas have a significantly lower share of COVID-19 deaths – are explained in the literature review summarised in the introduction, which we sketch here in three points: i) the virus infection can cause (mainly, but not only) respiratory and pulmonary diseases; ii) long-term exposure to particulate matter – as captured by the PM10 and PM2.5 particulate measures and other pollutants such as nitrogen bioxide (NO2) – weaken lungs and alveolus response to respiratory and pulmonary viruses, thereby increasing the likelihood of inflammatory responses and adverse outcomes in presence of such viruses [27] ; iii) the COVID-19 generates mainly more negative outcomes in terms of respiratory and pulmonary diseases in areas with higher pollution such as those without national parks and/or preservation of natural resources [4] .…”

Conducting quantitative mask fit tests: application details and affecting factors

“…These hazards can lead to conditions such as pneumoconiosis, occupational poisoning, and other occupational diseases (1)(2)(3)(4). For instance, the COVID-19 outbreak was primarily caused by the virus being carried on particulate matter and transmitted to people through contact (5)(6)(7)(8)(9). As of the end of 2021, occupational pneumoconiosis cases continued to rank first among occupational diseases (10).…”

The Heterogeneous Effects of Lockdown Policies on Air Pollution∗

“…See for exampleCoker et al (2020);Wu et al (2020);Isphording & Pestel (2021);Persico & Johnson (2021);Weaver et al (2022) orBecchetti et al (2022).15 RDiT methods have been widely implemented in the economic literature that estimate the causal impact of specific shocks on air quality(Davis, 2008;Auffhammer & Kellogg, 2011;Chen & Whalley, 2012;Gallego et al, 2013;Dang & Trinh, 2021). However, these methods may suffer from methodological limitations, especially in the presence of time varying treatment effects or autoregression(Hausman & Rapson, 2018).…”